Various methods and apparatus for assembling the sliders of slide fasteners are known. Exemplary of the same are those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,711,574; 2,825,126; 2,838,969; 3,138,852 and 3,234,635. Such known methods and apparatus while satisfactory for the intended purposes do not provide optimized fool-proof operation as would prevent improper assembly of the slider components, possible damage to the assembly apparatus, etc. Moreover, known apparatus used for assembling sliders is of relatively complex construction having many machine components which require frequent maintenance and/or replacement.
The general objective of the present invention is to provide a new and novel method and apparatus to assemble automatically the various components thereof to form an automatic lock slider, to do so in a more efficient manner, and thereby provide an automatic lock slider of a better and more consistent quality than heretofore available.
Another object of the invention is to provide an assembly method and apparatus which embodies features therein, to detect the presence of faulty parts and/or the presence or absence of parts in the assembly operation and which function to stop the assembly operation in order to prevent the assembly of sliders which would lack springs or pull tabs.
Another object of the invention is to provide a novel method and apparatus which embodies features therein which function to protect the apparatus against damage as could be caused by operation of the same with faulty slider component parts.
Another object of the invention is to provide apparatus that with the exchange of few parts, can be utilized to assemble sliders of different size or sliders of different types.
Another object of the invention is to assemble sliders in line without employing costly and slow rotatable turret assembly equipment which involve effecting assembly operations at a number of stations, the advantage of the invention to thereby lessen the number of machine parts required and resulting maintenance of these parts.
Various other objects and advantages as well as novel features of this invention will become apparent from a reading of the detailed description which follows later.